Tough Times Ahead For Paytm, MobiKwik, and PhonePe?
Smartphone manufacturer Realme has recently announced its foray into the digital payments space. While this has raised hopes, however, there are certain checklists for the same!
Smartphone brands have really piqued their interest in financial services. Only a few weeks after famous smart phone brand ‘Xiaomi’ entered the credit sector, Realme announced recently that it is launching ‘PaySa’. Realme claims that ‘Paysa’ would be a ‘full-fledged’ financial services platform.
In an interview with Indian Express, Realme India head Madhav Sheth said, “Realme PaySa is not just about payments, it is about everything related to money; it may be insurance, it may be savings, it may be lending or it may be whatever you want to do with your money.”
Why PaySa?
The CEO of Realme made it very clear that ‘PaySa’ was created to change the lives of millions of users, both in metros and Tier 4 and Tier 5 cities, especially in a country like India. He even mentioned that the need and demand for the digital payments space are increasing day by day in Tier 4 and 5 cities. Even tiny shopkeepers are trying to go digital, thus this is the need of the hour, said Sheth.
PaySa is expected to cater to the financial needs of individuals and SMEs. It will have four separate verticals under lending, savings, payment, and protection.
Current Offerings
The beta version of PaySa is available and can be downloaded from the PlayStore. At the time of writing this article, the app wasn’t available on App Store. Realme has also tied up with Early Salary and Lending Cart for personal and business loans respectively. As a specialty, they have a free credit card report and screen protection insurance on the platform. Though currently, the app is in the beta stage, the smartphone giant is going for a full rollout in 2020.
PaySa would be headed by Varun Sridhar, who possesses more than 17 years of retail banking experience and a good understanding of the digital payments sector. He started working on the project some six to nine months back.
What Does This Mean For Rivals Paytm, MobiKwik and Google Pay?
Truth to be told, digital payments companies in India have been bleeding. Consider, PhonePe that recently got a nod from its parent Walmart, to raise funds independently. They received around INR. 2,000 crore from its Singapore headquartered parent entity in 2019. In FY19, PhonePe revealed losses of around INR. 1,905 crore on revenues of INR.246 crore. On the other hand, Paytm announced a $1 billion fundraise led by T Row Price at a valuation of about $16 billion. Its parent company, One97 Communications, posted around INR. 3.960 crores in losses on revenues of INR. 3.319 crores.
Last year, digital payments firm MobiKwik said in a media statement that they have adopted Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deep learning models to roll out various lending products to address the credit requirements at its user base. Talking about the company, they were aiming to hit a transactional amount of $20 billion by 2022.
Would Realme Have To Fight Tougher?
Well, the facts and figures stated above, it’s indeed noteworthy and worthy mentioning that the digital payments sector in India is not an easy place to deal with and to survive. Now that Realme has already forayed into the payments space, surely it would have to come up with some uniqueness that would differentiate it from the mass. And, regarding its performance analysis, time would say.
